Talk:2023-07-15 Steven Sharif, Ashes of Creation's Freeholds, Resource Bags, & More - Tangents of Creation

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• 00:00

crushes your dreams

• 00:04

Sell them I just want to make them and do stuff. I know I would just want to play with them

• 00:12

Right we got here to your five

• 00:15

Well, it's not gonna be me cuz I don't play that much Oh

• 00:20

She says that yeah more time than it probably any of us I'm gonna be I'm gonna be perusing the foreclosure market

• 00:26

That's what I'm gonna be doing. She said okay first up. Well actually we can get into the you know that topic

• 00:32

But any says this but like I'm Wow I had like one like when it when we first start playing

• 00:38

Dragon flight I oh my god

• 00:42

Hi Steven hello I

• 00:45

Think she will be too. Oh my god. My heart just stop. Oh god

• 00:59

Don't don't mess with me like that Steven I think one of I am

• 01:05

I'm blushing off the stream. I don't even know how

• 01:14

Yeah, if you're for real. I will I will throw you a twitch guest star right now. Oh

• 01:19

God are we sure this is this is the real Steven Sharif. This is me on discord. Oh my holy

• 01:27

Oh my god

• 01:31

Cry oh

• 01:33

Oh

• 01:34

Okay, yep, no Jesus Christ all right

• 01:39

Yeah, no go ahead. Oh my so I sent the twitch guest star. Oh

• 01:47

Guys I'm trying not to be such a fangirl right now, but I'm gonna

• 01:50

Cool, I can't oh my god. We did it

• 02:06

Hello, how's it going Steven? It's going well. How are you? We are great? Thank you for joining the show

• 02:12

I got I got home and I saw the notification on Twitter on Twitter

• 02:21

And I jumped in and was listening for a little bit, and I thought hey what the hell?

• 02:30

Yeah

• 02:31

Yeah, we were gonna dive into the two of the hot topic things which was the player response to some of the freehold

• 02:38

Information the newer information then as well as the one after this is the resource bags

• 02:46

I like how I like how these said that Margaret right now is legit the dog in the flaming house me

• 02:59

Like because our whole show is based off a tangent said if we could get you on like we figured maybe if we got a

• 03:04

Couple tangents go in that maybe some spoilers come no

• 03:10

I try to be good. I try to be

• 03:14

So yeah, what'd you guys think about the article today?

• 03:16

Um I actually liked it a lot

• 03:18

It was thorough and answered a lot of questions

• 03:20

I had had and there was some stuff in there that I wasn't aware though. That was really cool. Yeah, I think it was good

• 03:26

I

• 03:27

Go ahead. Sorry. Oh no Steven you have the floor go ahead

• 03:29

I was just gonna say we had intended to release it last week

• 03:34

But I wanted to include a little bit more meat behind the system

• 03:39

And I think get a little bit more

• 03:43

Specific on exactly how these things are intended to work for alpha 2 so I thought I thought people would like that

• 03:49

But anytime you kind of venture into that territory of getting really specific

• 03:52

That's when you know

• 03:55

You run the risk of going a bit in depth on a system and the broader audience that might not you know fully

• 04:02

Perhaps understand the intricacies or interconnections that exist between the different systems and the intent

• 04:07

They might read into something and think well, wait a minute. Why is that being done?

• 04:11

Right

• 04:12

So the more in-depth you can get something the more difficult it is to communicate verbally or in written context

• 04:19

Without being in the game and experience it and seeing those systems, you know come to life so to speak. Yeah

• 04:25

That's something we kind of talk about too

• 04:27

Is that there's there's so many other systems that we don't know how they interplay together

• 04:30

Especially like with nodes being a big part of freeholds and everything like that without knowing with hopefully we're seeing that next month

• 04:38

without knowing

• 04:40

Yeah, this oh my god. Yeah this month

• 04:43

Knowing like the intricacies of that too. Like it's hard to know like some of this does kind of come at you like

• 04:49

It's it's one portion of in this overarching system. So it is harder to know like well

• 04:54

How does this actually work especially without also having your hands on it, too?

• 04:57

It's I think that's something we've kind of keep coming back to a bit with these questions is like, you know

• 05:02

We don't fully understand how all this works and and what it takes to get to get freeholds

• 05:09

Get freeholds with especially with you guys introducing the idea of like this three layer system

• 05:14

Right and things like that

• 05:17

You know, I'll go ahead. No you go ahead. Please. No, I feel free to cut me off

• 05:23

I was just gonna say that

• 05:26

Yeah, you know

• 05:28

Even though the system as described

• 05:31

Is intricate and kind of you know gives the intent behind how it's going to be developed for alpha 2

• 05:36

the most important thing to remember is that like alpha 2 is really the testing grounds for a lot of the

• 05:44

More minute details of how a particular system works and you can change a lot of those details without actually

• 05:51

Needing to change the feature that's been developed, right?

• 05:54

These are variables that exist within the code that we have control over so that when we want to iterate upon it

• 06:00

It's easy to do iterations and some of those iterations can feel very impactful to the system overall

• 06:06

So alpha 2 really is meant to kind of gauge this initial approach

• 06:11

And then we're afforded the ability to kind of change that drastically

• 06:15

by tuning and changing some of the aspects of the

• 06:19

Of the specifics of the system, right? So one of those things is I saw people saying like well

• 06:24

You know when when you think about how many nodes there are and how many counties or excuse me how many baronies

• 06:30

That we saw that exist on this map that equates to like 500 plus guild halls

• 06:36

Well, one of the aspects of the guild hall

• 06:40

Access is that only a limited subset of the guild halls available around the node are available

• 06:48

Concurrently, no, there's many choices of those six, right?

• 06:51

So you might only have two that might be available at fifth level and then three at sixth level of a node

• 06:57

And the guilds have an opportunity to select from the six available which three are going to be active

• 07:03

All right, that's sweet. Yeah, because we were just talking about that

• 07:06

We were like, we don't know how many of these can be active or how it works

• 07:09

But I mean that whole that diagram that you guys put out

• 07:11

I really enjoyed seeing that and kind of like having that grasp of like, okay

• 07:14

So these things are going to be centered around that

• 07:16

I had when I had oh, yes

• 07:18

So what you're bringing up about having like, you know, adjusting the dials and levers and and that was one of the concerns

• 07:24

That was kind of brought up with in our discord was like, well if they've been working on this

• 07:28

But now they're asking for this like how much effort needs to go in

• 07:32

And I remember from streams ago of like you guys talking about how you want to have these

• 07:37

You know kind of an easier access of we're going to be able to adjust and iterate like on the fly because I believe at one

• 07:42

Point you guys even said even when servers were live

• 07:44

That was how you wanted to adjust and tune that you still in the background be able to manipulate things

• 07:49

As you guys saw things kind of come online or if this works that doesn't work or you know

• 07:54

Things of that nature. Yeah

• 07:56

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, you know a lot of the uh,

• 08:01

A lot of what we're providing and how these systems are built are very data driven

• 08:06

And don't require us to let's say repackage a client and deliver that up

• 08:11

To the user for us to adjust data on the back end of the game and do that during run time

• 08:19

So we can actually uh, we can actually create a lot of different environments of testing for a particular system

• 08:26

within a running alpha 2

• 08:29

Without having to let's say bring the servers down repackage and deliver an update to the user

• 08:35

Oh cool. Yeah

• 08:37

Right. I'm trying i'm my i'm hearing you talk and it's like blowing my mind right now. Um,

• 08:47

So recovering from the shock yeah a little bit

• 08:50

How do you guys feel about the you know?

• 08:53

One of the biggest things I saw over the course of the last couple of weeks since we've you know had that stream and

• 08:59

And we've been gauging kind of the community's response to that is this is this is this

• 09:04

What appears to me as kind of like an aversion, uh to a degree of

• 09:09

What has been for a long time one of the central tenants and and core pillars of the game, which is

• 09:15

This idea of risk versus reward exclusivity kind of scarcity that exists, you know, not everybody gets a trophy

• 09:21

But I think that this example of the freehold

• 09:25

System kind of being shown is that a lot of people want to be able to

• 09:30

own a piece of land and to engage in these core gameplay loops of farming and and

• 09:37

Livestock and that type of interaction owning a home and customizing that location

• 09:41

And when it's been resurfaced that you know, these these freeholds are exclusive to a degree that they're achievements that you have to strive for

• 09:50

And that limitation there's a bit of pushback

• 09:53

What is your guys thoughts because I think that's a really important point

• 09:56

And there's a bit of pushback. Uh, what is your guys thoughts kind of been about that?

• 10:01

So for me

• 10:03

You go ahead. Oh, no, you can go ahead. No, go ahead. I'll go next

• 10:07

No, go ahead. I'll remember mine. I had

• 10:10

Um, I was gonna say so I i'm a big fan of like high risk high reward like jamie and I I think definitely like

• 10:17

Live our lives that way to an extent like we just up and moved from new hampshire to kentucky on a whim like because

• 10:23

We just wanted something new like yeah, I like and people are like why did you move here?

• 10:27

And we're like just felt like it kind of you know, like that's kind of cool. I like the sponsority of that. That's awesome

• 10:34

So like it's nice having that in a video game and like I think in a lot of ways like world of warcraft making

• 10:40

exclusive mounts like available now through twitch drops and stuff like that like is a big shame and it's

• 10:46

Yeah, it really hurts the integrity of the game and stuff. So with ashes of creation the fact that they are having you know

• 10:53

I say they but you

• 10:55

And your project are um having like that high risk high reward like not everybody gets a trophy mentality is like really really great

• 11:02

and like

• 11:03

I I love it for the free holds

• 11:05

But I think my point of concern with it is it being max level like in order to obtain one?

• 11:10

Which is going to lead to a bunch of people love level rushing

• 11:14

Because they want to get one first and then they're not going to enjoy the game you guys are building

• 11:18

As much as they realize you know, it's funny actually that you that you mentioned that because that was for a time a lively debate on our design team

• 11:27

Um about whether or not there should be a level gate

• 11:31

Um essentially from even preventing uh the potential for ownership the the reason why I chose um to

• 11:40

Keep it at level 50 for now

• 11:42

Um is because there are alternate systems that provide access at lower levels

• 11:48

Uh through permission setting right? So it's one thing to own the home

• 11:52

It's another thing to access the contents and to continue progression. Let's say in the processing profession. You might want to gain mastery and

• 12:01

um that mastery

• 12:03

Process leaves the nodes at around at around like level 30 in the in the leveling experience for a processing profession

• 12:11

and so um

• 12:13

One of the debates on the design team was whether or not we should reduce the uh level requirement down to level 30 so that there's a seamless

• 12:21

transition from node based processing progression and the freehold uh capability of progression

• 12:28

Um, the reason why I think that there's never going to be a way to avoid rushing levels

• 12:34

Um is because anytime you have a vertical power progression in a game. There is always going to be a reason to rush leveling

• 12:42

Um, and that's just kind of the standard mmo experience that many of us have have had right?

• 12:48

Uh, not all of us do it because not all of us really care about the vertical progression there

• 12:52

Um or have the time and ability to do it, right? But um, generally so long as there's a vertical power structure in place

• 12:59

You're going to have an incentive to rush that leveling process

• 13:02

Um, and the idea isn't that you will need to rush leveling to 50 in Ashes of Creation in order to achieve a freehold

• 13:10

Because you have to also remember that

• 13:13

The world structure is what predicates the availability of freeholds. So as nodes come online

• 13:20

Excuse me adds nodes come online over time

• 13:23

People will reach level 50 before the last node has reached level three

• 13:27

Right before even half the nodes probably have reached level three before even probably a quarter of the nodes have reached level three

• 13:34

And as those nodes continue to progress and grow

• 13:38

Those freeholds will slowly be trickling out to the populations which gives time for the people that didn't perhaps let's say

• 13:46

Rush leveling to 50 still be capable of purchasing freeholds within those territories. And one other thing I would say is that

• 13:52

There's a bit of a strategy when it comes to prioritization of what of what you're going to do in a game like Ashes

• 13:59

A lot of people will bolt to 50. They won't care about establishing their infrastructure

• 14:04

I don't know if you ever play like board games or any forex strategy games stuff like that any resource management or action economy games

• 14:10

But oftentimes early in those games you have to kind of make a decision, right?

• 14:14

If it's like a let's say it's like some type of you know, victory point structure

• 14:18

You sometimes have an option to get victory points

• 14:20

Or you can establish your foundation and you can start building up your economy and you can start building up your

• 14:28

Capabilities without going for the gold to start because then you're going to slingshot once you have all that infrastructure in place

• 14:35

And go for that level 50

• 14:36

Those are viable options because of the way that freeholds trickle out onto the server with the world state being progressed over time

• 14:44

It might be a smarter choice not to rush to 50

• 14:47

But rather to take your time establishing that foundation so that when you reach level 50 and the rest of the nodes are now progressing

• 14:54

To the point where they can release freeholds

• 14:56

You will have the best possible chance of contending for that freehold because you spent the time early not to rush to 50 but rather

• 15:03

establish that foundation like there, you know the aspect of this strategy is an important component of how you might achieve the freehold

• 15:11

The other thing to keep in mind is that and this is something that I didn't I don't know if I said this

• 15:15

something that I didn't I don't know if I elaborated on in the article or not, but

• 15:20

There are

• 15:22

There are bound currencies that exist within the game, right?

• 15:25

And then there is the general currencies that's usually achieved through certificates and the ability to trade those certificates in to get gold

• 15:32

That we've talked about in the past, but some of those bound currencies are like favor

• 15:36

You know, these are points that you achieve doing some divine quest lines participating in divine story arcs or honor, which is like pvp oriented

• 15:43

Unique currencies stuff like that, right?

• 15:45

The most common denominator of availability for freeholds through the auction is going to be through gold

• 15:51

However, there will be a sub select of freehold

• 15:56

Options that are available in each node based on the node type that will correspond to one of those bound currencies in addition to gold

• 16:04

So what we do there is we kind of spread out the availability of freeholds to different play styles and different focuses

• 16:11

So the player that might rush to level 50 will they might have an advantage when bidding on gold based freeholds

• 16:18

But they may not have the advantage of the favor player or the honor player

• 16:23

Who is going to be progressing within those play styles, right?

• 16:27

So the idea is that we're not reserving freeholds for the top 10 percent of levelers

• 16:33

We're reserving freeholds for the top 10 percent across the multiple different play paths that exist within the game

• 16:40

And this spreads out that ownership across different play styles

• 16:44

So, like all right, I like that I needed to hear that say I like that answer a lot

• 16:48

Especially to like because we we do lack some of the context as we go like oh, like I didn't even think of

• 16:53

Yeah, once once you know level threes are coming or level three nodes are coming on like most of us will probably be level 50 begin with

• 17:00

So like that rush

• 17:02

Really at least for the people first come because obviously it's going to be a different experience to those

• 17:06

As they join a year later because everything the world's going to be different like that

• 17:10

But also those people are probably going to rush anyway

• 17:12

Because they've got friends that they have in there and like any of I said this early in the stream too

• 17:17

Like I already know that i'm gonna de-gen the game when it first comes out to where i'm gonna like

• 17:23

That's just the type of player I am where I will try it

• 17:26

Everything in me will say stop and try to enjoy everything

• 17:29

But like i'm going to try to push myself to get towards because I love seeing that that you know

• 17:34

You see the numbers go up. You're like, oh good numbers go up good. So once it hits 50

• 17:40

Yeah, yeah, so let's just have to drag anything along. Um

• 17:44

God that was that was a

• 17:46

Huge wealth of information i'm trying to take in and I think that did answer

• 17:51

So many of some of the mystery I guess behind it because we we were

• 17:55

We had also brought up too about how people felt about the three layer bidding system

• 17:59

But like I said, we kind of a lot we didn't have some of that context

• 18:01

so and this kind of goes back to what you were saying earlier that the the the streams kind of

• 18:07

Do reach a broader audience where people like us who obviously are making content or people that are watching obscure podcast

• 18:15

To like we're really tuned into a lot of things

• 18:18

So I do think having like an article like this also was with so much was really beneficial to see

• 18:24

All this in-depth things, but I also think like some of us are also theory crafters

• 18:28

So then we see this or like wait, okay. So but now how does that work?

• 18:31

So then we end up walking away with questions right walking away with a million more questions

• 18:35

and and the thing I think the thing that always comes back to it is like

• 18:39

We just have to wait till of some of these things

• 18:41

We're not going to know until we have it in our hands. We're able to touch it

• 18:45

Able to see things and say okay. This does feel good. This does make sense

• 18:49

Where we are in it. Yeah

• 18:51

And that's what I was trying to hit on early right is that like

• 18:54

When you start to pull a thread and that thread is game design specifics, right?

• 19:00

That thread just doesn't stop because the way that ashes is created

• 19:06

is that

• 19:08

In order to create a solid identity and a comprehensive play experience

• 19:15

All of these systems are developed in such a way where max interdependency is aimed for right?

• 19:23

And that means that this thread connects to a lot of different things. Like we just talked about bound currencies

• 19:29

We talked about node progression. We talked about limited selection of of the guild halls

• 19:34

We talked about family interactions and permission sets. We talked about maximum level progression across the grandmaster professions like

• 19:42

This choice these these intricate details of the system

• 19:46

They reverberate throughout the rest of the game design

• 19:49

And in order for us to have a solid play experience

• 19:53

And it's impossible to communicate this within a single monthly update or if we were writing articles about all the game design all the time

• 20:01

You know, we would just have a a constant flux of community interaction debate, you know

• 20:07

And I don't know how healthy that is to have at this point

• 20:11

Leading into alpha 2 when the experience is had from a tactile perspective as opposed conversationally, right?

• 20:18

And in order to kind of see these systems in concert with one another and determine whether or not

• 20:25

The choices made achieve the goal of the system or the systems

• 20:31

That is something that is required to be really more part of play testing

• 20:35

And so i'm always hesitant with streams like last month's or with articles like this to really get too deep

• 20:43

To get too in depth with what we have planned with these systems

• 20:48

Because they provide an opportunity to muddy the water or create a bit of noise

• 20:53

Around really what the goals are of the game, right trusting that the developers are making the best decisions possible

• 20:59

With how these systems are going to interact with one another and I know that's a big question

• 21:03

But you know trusting that that that conceptually is being articulated in such a way that maintains the identity and the core pillars of the game

• 21:12

And then when alpha 2 comes out and it's in our hands, that's when the feedback is most valuable because it's then given in context, right?

• 21:21

It's not specifically focused on one particular aspect

• 21:25

Yeah, I think when you go too deep too deep into the game

• 21:29

People can hold on sometimes to those details and then if it does change then they get upset

• 21:36

Yeah, it's like a game in development can't iterate. Oh my gosh. Yeah

• 21:42

Interpreted as set in stone, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean we saw that we saw that just this uh, you know, it's so funny actually hilarious

• 21:49

Um this week I didn't I didn't uh, you know, it's just a really busy week and I didn't have an opportunity to

• 21:55

Kind of take a look at the planned socials, uh on on twitter and and the other social platforms, uh from our community team

• 22:02

And uh, there was a post that was made wednesday morning. I woke up. I was it was like 5 30

• 22:08

I was, you know getting ready to kind of start the day 6 a.m

• 22:11

This audit this scheduled post goes out on twitter and i'm reading it and it just has a picture of the uh,

• 22:17

Inventory system and it says what do you think about this? Right? I'm like, oh, I'm not sure

• 22:21

Inventory system and it says what do you think about this? Right? I'm like, oh my god

• 22:28

I cannot even believe the flood that's about to happen like

• 22:32

So I I immediately go on and i'm like wait, let me give context and then I re-quote it and I put it on the ashes

• 22:39

But you know, obviously it starts a it's it just starts a

• 22:43

Deluge of experiences that aren't necessarily reflective of the intent behind the system and ashes

• 22:49

But do represent the experiences that players have had in other games

• 22:53

And they take that as a one-to-one the moment they see kind of the perspective of the inventory

• 22:58

But again, there's a particular reason for why that inventory system is intended to exist within ashes

• 23:05

And and part of that is from the aspect of you know, everything in the world is gatherable

• 23:12

And there is a land management system that exists behind those gatherable things

• 23:16

The land management system kind of takes into account how players are interacting with the environment

• 23:21

How many of the resources they're withdrawing from the world and that decreases the spawn rate within certain localities

• 23:28

As those things go too high

• 23:30

So there can be a degree of economic warfare by sending players out into zones where you want to mitigate

• 23:36

You know collection of resources you send your players out there to take all those resources

• 23:41

And then that diminishes the land management score of that particular zone

• 23:44

And so when you think about other games that have had systems

• 23:49

Such as being able to gather anything from the world one of two things usually arises either those players. Whoops. Uh-oh

• 23:57

I didn't touch my computer for a second. You're still here. Oh, no

• 24:04

One of one of two things that happens either

• 24:07

People just at all times are expected to gather and and collect things when they're out in the wild like we saw

• 24:13

In a recent game where if you're not doing that you're not not the most optimal

• 24:18

Or they impose kind of a a hard limit

• 24:22

Throttle like a labor system or you know something that mitigates how much you can do a thing

• 24:29

Our approach with kind of addressing that necessity

• 24:32

Was let's talk about inventory management

• 24:35

And if a player is going to leave a node and go out and start adventuring if everything's gatherable

• 24:42

If everything's gatherable and the only restriction is your tools and the level of mastery within that particular gathering profession

• 24:50

Um, then what's to stop them from ever acquiring everything?

• 24:53

Well, there's kind of two primary methods by which you can approach that either through a weight management system

• 25:00

Or through a spatial system and when you talk about the complexities available through like let's say bag progression

• 25:07

weight is a very

• 25:09

monocentric

• 25:12

aspect monocentric kind of uh, um, uh restriction

• 25:16

Whereas when you have stack size and shape size and you can cater certain bag types based on slot management

• 25:25

To be more conducive towards particular types of shapes and have varying stack sizes available

• 25:32

It's not about the mini game of how do I organize that because there's an auto sort feature

• 25:36

but rather it's more focused around what types of bags am I going to equip during that time and

• 25:43

How am I going to determine which resources I should interact with when i'm out in the wild knowing that before I can gather

• 25:50

Everything I will have to go back to a storage location

• 25:54

And deposit what I have gathered right now. It's about how do I manage time?

• 25:58

Because the time is traveling back and forth from those storage locations, right?

• 26:03

so so like, you know, it's difficult to kind of explain that in a post or in a

• 26:11

Uh in a in a live stream to a degree

• 26:13

Uh, and it's and it's difficult to get kind of you know context for that

• 26:17

Especially if you're not as an engaged user or an engaged audience member if you're just seeing this on the sideline

• 26:23

And you're like, wait a minute. I've played tetris before I don't like that. You know what I mean?

• 26:27

Yeah, so that was something because that was actually one of the things that we were uh gonna discuss tonight

• 26:33

Um, and I was kind of proponent of it because I think I kind of took it from the way that like kind of seeing

• 26:38

How certain games handle things where yeah, you can have a stack size or it can be by weight

• 26:42

But you see these people strip off armor

• 26:44

Some of these other games don't have pvp watch this one dude running around in a circle constantly cutting down all the trees

• 26:49

Sniping things from you and you're like this is this is like why is this happening?

• 26:53

Why is there nothing preventing you from doing that? So I did see a lot like that people seem kind of split of not

• 26:59

Liking this idea of having this spatial

• 27:01

Design for the bags, but when i'm seeing that i'm like, okay. So now i've got a plan

• 27:05

He's like I anything that seems to make something a little bit more difficult. I'm all about it

• 27:09

So i'm like, okay

• 27:10

So if I want to go out mining, I gotta make sure i've got my mining bags

• 27:13

I gotta have this I gotta be willing to potentially drop this thing to pick this up

• 27:18

Correct, especially when you think about it from a pvp perspective as well

• 27:22

Some of those bags might have increased times to interact with a player corpse

• 27:26

Right and you can choose to perhaps have less capacity less stack size less slot

• 27:32

Availability for the certain types of gatherables you may want to acquire in exchange for an increased

• 27:40

Interaction time for other players that might try to loot that bag giving you time to reach it and take back your belongings

• 27:47

Right. Oh, that's cool. Or or if in the middle of a fight

• 27:50

They see a corpse on the ground and they're like wait a minute. I want to grab that

• 27:52

Well if I got to spend 10 seconds to interact with that corpse and there's combat going on like this is an opportunity

• 27:59

Strategically for you to recapture the grounds for you to recapture the battlefield, right?

• 28:03

You want to think about those types of interactions? How do you add layers of strategy to engagements?

• 28:09

And and there's ways to do that through inventory management as well

• 28:12

It's funny that you brought that up because I think annie was looking at that and someone someone on twitter was like great

• 28:17

So it's just gonna be an endless thing back going back and forth ganking

• 28:20

But I think they were being facetious, but Annie was like she was like, yeah, actually, I think I just got sold on using

• 28:27

I um, I I don't mind the Tetris system, but I think logically I like the encumbrance aspect of it

• 28:33

But then once I read that and was like, oh like that's just gonna make it so somebody can't just kill you and like

• 28:38

Run off with your stuff in five seconds. They have to actually organize it

• 28:42

So then it gives you a chance to come back and get your stuff back

• 28:44

So I was like, all right, or they might not even have the slots available, you know

• 28:49

Yeah, it might be something that can't even you gotta organize and drop stuff and yeah

• 28:53

Yeah, it might even be the case that their particular bag space doesn't have available

• 29:00

Location for a three by one log, right and you're a lumberjack and they see you just chopping down these trees

• 29:05

And you're like there's no point in me engaging with this person because I have nothing to gain due to my capacity

• 29:10

Right. I know what I'm kitted for. I chose these bags like, you know, there's a there's an additional layer then of

• 29:18

Strategy there that I think is is interesting

• 29:21

And I think so. Yeah, definitely seeing that part definitely changed my mind on that a bit

• 29:26

And I think probably because most people are used to I can grab whatever I want

• 29:29

I can show this all in my bag. I have space for all this. I might have a reagent bag or whatever

• 29:33

But it's like not understanding like what is the point of this? But now you've got one now you're looking at time to kill

• 29:38

Time to loot and then having that time to now reclaim something that was potentially lost from you to keep that player fiction

• 29:44

So yeah, you might have that ongoing back and forth and it might be a thing of who wants a crew the most XP debt

• 29:52

But like I can see that the reason now too behind that and I think that's something that again kind of gets lost in context

• 29:58

And I think it's just because you know

• 30:01

Not to put you in a bad spot like I feel like current MMOs spoon feed us a lot

• 30:05

You don't need to answer if that you feel the same way, but um, I love when gamers Steven comes out

• 30:10

So if you want to you want to you know, no, no, I try not to get in trouble. I know

• 30:15

I noticed that Phelan says that's only if the player respects the corruption system again

• 30:21

Trying to communicate the intent of a system if players

• 30:26

Enlarge do not respect the corruption system

• 30:29

Then the implementation of that corruption system has failed and needs to be iterated upon

• 30:35

So first we must determine what is the intent of a system?

• 30:39

Then we architect the system in order to achieve that intent

• 30:42

And if it doesn't then we iterate on that system

• 30:45

Like that that is the that is how you go about creating these these interactions, right?

• 30:51

So, um corruption is a huge deterrent to open world pvp outside of the game

• 30:58

Open world pvp outside of opt-in events

• 31:01

Then that's not to say that players can't use it

• 31:03

It's to say that the intent is when used it is extremely minimal in your play experiences

• 31:09

Perhaps a person within a month might experience in their play time two percent of interaction with a corrupt player

• 31:16

98 of their play time is going to be with non-corrupt players, right?

• 31:19

And so that's how we kind of iterate. How do we achieve what the intent is behind the system, right?

• 31:26

And even going along that lines, I think there there's this particular game

• 31:31

Where a lot of people have had their pvp experience in and there are no player protections in that whatsoever

• 31:38

You can just beat out the world. They kill a npc they gank they do this

• 31:42

And I feel like that's where a lot of that fear comes from because I don't hear it from

• 31:46

other certain groups of mmo players, but this one particular game

• 31:50

And I feel like there are just a lot of people that that that pvp and it in

• 31:55

It's one of those things too

• 31:56

Where it just kind of feels tacked on where everything with ashes like even even now that we're even talking about why the spatial bag

• 32:03

System is there everything seems like it's so baked into the core systems

• 32:07

And so thought out and so meticulous of like this is why we're doing this

• 32:12

That that is I think it's harder for people to grasp that because a lot of these systems when you do see in like

• 32:17

It it's not even just the like say like poor game design

• 32:20

Some of the is limitation of what they could do when the games were made when they were made

• 32:24

Where you couldn't implement certain systems like this where now there's so much more technology

• 32:29

There's so many more things that we can do

• 32:31

so I think people do have a harder time grasping like

• 32:34

Well, how's this even going to work because it didn't work in this game, but then you're like, but it wasn't in that game

• 32:39

Yeah, you know I I kind of equate it to um, I don't know you ever sit down with your friends

• 32:44

And you're about to open up a brand new board game, right?

• 32:47

You're all sitting around the table and you have this one friend who's like

• 32:50

Digging through the rule book and they're like reading it aloud every single sentence

• 32:55

And you're just and and some people respond very positively to that. I call those the developer watchers

• 33:00

Those are people who are able to to watch a development in progress because they love talking about it

• 33:05

They're very auditory related listeners like they are capable of following along

• 33:10

However, some people at the table are like, yeah, let's just get let's start playing. We'll figure it out when we start playing

• 33:14

That's definitely not me

• 33:17

So there's some people that are like that too and that's okay

• 33:20

Like we all are different types of learners

• 33:23

But what you described it's not so much that I feel people can't grasp the systems

• 33:28

It's that I feel people are different in the sense of how they wished to grasp it

• 33:33

Some people want to grasp it by playing it by touching it by feeling it, right?

• 33:37

And other people want to grasp it by talking about it by reading through it by understanding it

• 33:42

You know in a different way and the harsh reality is is that this you know development journeys are are not for everybody

• 33:50

That's just a simple fact the the what I what I gave you as an example is a testament to that truth

• 33:55

but you know, we have to cater the

• 33:59

the

• 34:01

the process of showing development in a transparent manner that is

• 34:07

capable of transcending certain audiences or at least being mindful of the different audiences that are going to be watching, right?

• 34:15

And you guys are an example of of an audience that are that are capable willing wanting

• 34:20

To kind of get into the nitty-gritty during the discussion phase

• 34:24

But there is a much larger portion of our audience that really just wants to either see your play

• 34:29

And and that's why we have to be careful how we do it

• 34:34

Yeah, I would do when

• 34:37

Annie

• 34:39

That's the question you see it a million times like

• 34:45

No, that wasn't me actually out asking I was quoting those people

• 34:50

Yeah, the ones that like yeah, well that's I think you'd mentioned too that there's a lot of people that they're like

• 34:54

You know the game looks so ready. Let's let's launch it

• 34:56

Let's go and like this like we're looking back and we're kind of seeing where things seem like they're developed and we're kind of like

• 35:04

I don't I don't know like I thought we were closer

• 35:06

But then you like we're looking at some stuff and it's like because I think we were kind of looking back like last year

• 35:11

And we're like, oh it's gonna be right around the corner then

• 35:13

Yeah, I don't remember which stream we saw but we're like, oh, it's it's gonna be a bit longer than everyone kind of predicted

• 35:18

Yeah, I mean, you know the truth of the matter is and we've said this a long time and everybody's aware of this like

• 35:22

what we're building is not a

• 35:24

You know wham bam. Thank you, man. We're moving to the next game. You know what I mean? We're trying to create something that has

• 35:31

longevity and

• 35:33

When we're talking about what it takes to do that right

• 35:37

It means that rushing it is the bane of every game possible

• 35:41

Yes

• 35:42

and and it's not that we don't want to play and it's not that we don't want to receive what

• 35:48

Our reward should be which is the excitement passion happiness of the players. We're making the game for like yes

• 35:55

We feed and live off of our monthly presentations to the community because it shows us how well

• 36:03

Our direction resonates with their target audience right our fellow gamers

• 36:09

but the reality is is that

• 36:11

We have seen time and time again

• 36:15

as lovers of this genre ourselves

• 36:17

Playing games that cut corners or playing games that were built not to last a long time

• 36:24

Whether through whatever monetization strategies or design choices get made

• 36:31

And the reality is is that we're trying to do something different and when we're trying to do that thing differently

• 36:37

There is a particular

• 36:40

Focus that we need to maintain and that is

• 36:43

Spending the time necessary to build it in a way that is not going to result in the same

• 36:49

Experience we've all had in the past

• 36:53

And it's painful. It's difficult. It's a lot of freaking time

• 36:57

And effort, but I think that it's worth the reward. What is the what is the old saying is that?

• 37:04

patience is uh is bitter, but it's fruit is sweet and

• 37:08

It's fruit is sweet. And uh, you know, that's something that we always got to keep our our eye on

• 37:14

Yeah, I don't know if I could do this with another game

• 37:17

I just uh

• 37:18

Because I remember even when we first we found it

• 37:21

Annie had subscribed to the newsletters and everything when it was on kickstarter

• 37:24

And i'm definitely kicking myself that we didn't back it then but I I was so used to like I know how long games take

• 37:28

To develop I don't want to see it. Don't show me and then I forget what happened

• 37:32

It was love at first sight for me. I was like, oh, yeah always trying to show me

• 37:35

I'm like, I know we're not going to see this for at least like 10 like why are you showing me this?

• 37:39

And then something happened where I was like

• 37:42

Yeah, shit. I was like i'm i'm in now

• 37:46

Yeah, so like ever since then it's like i've been glued to like anytime article comes out a video comes out and all these things

• 37:52

Where it's like man, I just want to absorb like i've really enjoyed the process and I think there's something too where

• 37:58

For for some of us when we are following this, you know

• 38:01

I think it could also be why sometimes that reaction why there's an emotional reaction with something that either someone misunderstood or

• 38:09

maybe a design did change but I think because

• 38:12

Is having it starting following so early?

• 38:14

I think you get like this bit of I wouldn't say ownership

• 38:16

But it's a word i'm going to use where you do get this bit of yeah

• 38:19

Like you feel very connected to this this thing

• 38:22

And that's one of the things that I love about it because it feels

• 38:25

It's I don't know if it's like uh when you find a band that like no one knows about and then everyone learns about it

• 38:29

Like I don't like that band anymore, but like it's just you find it at the very beginning. It just

• 38:34

It's it's it's amazing to follow

• 38:36

But I don't think I could do this with another one and in prophecy you guys for having like I can only imagine the additional

• 38:42

Level of stress that comes with doing these and showing it and having the public eye on it

• 38:48

Especially like when you guys lifted the the nda during um alpha one and stuff

• 38:54

Where it was like, you know that that could have gone one of either ways and just being like no

• 38:58

We want people to see this. We want people to be able to talk about it

• 39:01

So I I commend you guys a lot for just putting yourself out there

• 39:04

To be able to take that criticism and stuff because it's something that even like these, you know, triple a studios

• 39:09

They're not doing they're not putting themselves out there to

• 39:12

Get either a bunch of love or hate out of it

• 39:15

Yeah, you know it's i've talked about this in the past

• 39:17

But the reality is is that I feel the paradigm is shifting a bit when it comes to game development

• 39:22

I hope it continues uh in that sense

• 39:24

um

• 39:25

Because you know while while watching development isn't for everybody there is a large and healthy section of the gaming population

• 39:33

That is willing and able to be part of a development

• 39:36

Uh and to give their thoughts and experiences and I think that's just an absolute treasure trove of

• 39:42

Navigational direction that's available to game developers overall

• 39:46

Um, it it requires a significant investment, right? You have to be willing to spend the time

• 39:51

Um to curate kind of the tran the level of transparency

• 39:56

That is appropriate. Um, but transparency being the key

• 40:00

um, and you know, it definitely adds

• 40:05

A layer of complexity to an already complex process which is making games in the first place

• 40:10

And you know making games is difficult making an mmo is probably the most difficult game you can make and ours is a particularly ambitious one

• 40:17

So like there is just layer upon layer of difficulty

• 40:21

and stress and

• 40:24

You know moments of doubt and you know inflection like there's there's a lot of stuff

• 40:30

um that that comes out through this process and it's years long, but

• 40:35

ultimately, you know

• 40:38

It is important to keep your eye on the prize and that prize is being able to create something

• 40:43

That you and your fellow gamers can look at and say

• 40:47

This is fucking good, you know

• 40:51

Yeah, that's

• 40:52

Well, let's think too and you you had touched uh, just a little while ago about making a game that has longevity and I think that's

• 41:00

I think even some developers for certain games. Uh, I remember watching a

• 41:04

Dev stream about wow how they were saying we never intended the game to be played

• 41:08

Eight hours a day multiple times a week like it was never intent to have that and it seems like you guys are taking in

• 41:15

consideration like that player that wants to it kind of going back to like

• 41:19

Hardens back to some of the older mmo's where it was almost like a second life and

• 41:24

I that's something that I any I have both been missing because we want we tend to be

• 41:29

Like a one game player like I haven't had a home

• 41:32

In gaming for a very long time because I want to have one game I go to I think mmo players are a bit different than

• 41:39

Other genres because we want to have that thing. This is where we log in. This is where our friends are

• 41:44

This is where we yeah, you know, we're excited to continue this progression and everything and for me personally

• 41:50

I haven't had that game sparked that because i'll you know

• 41:53

Like I said, when ash is coming out probably degen it as much as I can when it first comes out and like I do

• 41:58

That with every game because I just want to sit there and soak suck everything up out of it

• 42:02

And then i'm like well now i'm at the end game

• 42:05

And now i'm just waiting every week to get a piece of loot

• 42:09

We're the login reward. Yeah, you know mmo's are our unique genre, right? They are

• 42:16

the most

• 42:17

socially

• 42:18

elastic

• 42:20

genre out there

• 42:22

And you know it makes sense. It is a massively multiplayer genre

• 42:26

So the unique opportunity that arises in forming friendships and bonds with people whom you've never met before

• 42:36

And live on halfway across the world from you in a culture that's radically different from yours with a background

• 42:42

That's uniquely diverse like, you know

• 42:45

That is just not typically an opportunity seen elsewhere in life, let alone games

• 42:50

So it has a tendency to create very passionate

• 42:56

Friendships and relationships with people because you're spending those hours with them on a discord or on a team speak or whatever, right?

• 43:04

And and in that sense, you know, there is a special responsibility that comes from the development teams that create these environments

• 43:13

Because you're not just now offering entertainment to people

• 43:16

You're offering a home for people a social home that they that you know is an important component of being a human being

• 43:26

So you want to make sure that you're treating that home with respect and with integrity when building it

• 43:33

And you're dedicating the time and um, you know resources that comes along with making that home and so

• 43:40

You know take a look at that and you'll see that

• 43:42

Um, you know resources that comes along with making that home and so, you know taking our time with this development is something that's important

• 43:49

um

• 43:50

And I think is ultimately what players will want even if their patience says otherwise during that process

• 43:58

Yeah, I feel like once you guys finally do get to a point where it releases or even even in the betas

• 44:02

That's where you're gonna see a lot of that turnaround where I feel like there's so many

• 44:07

people that are

• 44:09

Said it was going to fail in the beginning. So they're just holding on to that too. We're like, I can't I can't be wrong

• 44:14

I said this was a sky. I said wasn't going wrong. Yeah

• 44:16

Yeah, it's like yeah, because games that are scam definitely make decals in the grass when you stomp on it, but that's a

• 44:22

different tangent, but

• 44:25

Just that was the thing too

• 44:27

Because I will see arguments of people talking about some of the detail. Why are they focusing on that?

• 44:31

Why are they focusing that it's like do you know any other game that focuses on those small detail like it's a

• 44:36

Well, just seeing the labor of not not saying that they don't but seeing the amount of labor of love that you get

• 44:42

Not i'm not trying to throw any other developers. I don't do that

• 44:45

but

• 44:46

the like some of these small small details that we see

• 44:51

in in the in some of the design in like, um

• 44:55

Just like trying to get the physics right on the on the trees falling

• 44:58

We're trying to get a very specific animation out of this like trying to have these very specific

• 45:03

Things that you guys are going for like I feel that when I watch it where i'm like man

• 45:08

That's that's amazing that you guys thought about that small detail

• 45:11

Which seems to kind of get glossed over a bit on some of these other things. Yeah. No, I think that um, you know

• 45:16

I think that that's a great

• 45:19

Observation as it relates to what I was just talking about in creating that home, right?

• 45:24

It's those minute details that can have a large impact

• 45:28

For the immersion quality of the home or world you're in right and I think what you know when people say

• 45:34

Why are they focusing on this?

• 45:37

oftentimes

• 45:39

those types of

• 45:41

Details are not really a focus. They're the icing on top of a core feature that a developer has the love

• 45:50

to

• 45:50

Introduce right it might not even be a part of the game design document

• 45:54

But like hey, I spent some extra time this evening or over the course of this last week's evenings

• 46:01

Making this idea. What do you think about it? Steven? And i'm just like, holy shit. Let me let you cook, you know, just go

• 46:08

You know

• 46:10

Do what you do what you think's best because obviously you have the passion for it, right?

• 46:15

Like that's why one of the biggest qualifiers for the people that we hire at intrepid

• 46:22

and probably one of the components of why you know

• 46:26

I'm a very

• 46:28

Selective individual when it comes to introducing new members to the team

• 46:34

You know is are you an mmo gamer have you played mmos before yes, you can model a creature, you know

• 46:40

Yes, you can code a feature

• 46:43

But do you know what it's like to be the player on the other side of the screen who's going to play the thing you're doing?

• 46:50

And do you know what it means to play it? Right? Have you experienced that sense of community?

• 46:56

Do you know what an mmo genre is truly?

• 47:00

and

• 47:02

Yeah, it's hard to find those individuals to a degree because mmos aren't as big of a genre as they used to be

• 47:09

I believe that the golden years have yet to come

• 47:12

But you know historically there's been a little bit of a lull

• 47:16

and so

• 47:17

you know, I

• 47:19

It is what helps find that magic that you just described right is is people who love and appreciate the genre

• 47:27

That's so important too

• 47:29

I say and I think it really shines through a lot of the work that you guys do because like

• 47:33

We'll be sitting there watching and they're like man

• 47:36

that is just little things will pop out where it's like I can't believe they thought about that or like

• 47:40

and I love seeing that because

• 47:43

It just for me it showcases like how much

• 47:45

Of labor of love this this project is and how much of a passion project it is

• 47:49

And like it literally almost comes off as like this love letter to the mmo genre of like

• 47:56

This is these are all the things that we all wished and wanted for

• 47:59

And like a lot of them either fell short or wasn't there at the time

• 48:03

And like just seeing this it's one of the reasons I just get so pumped for this project

• 48:07

And like why we've you know, I decided to make content for it and things like that

• 48:13

Yeah, I don't know

• 48:14

Yeah, we don't do this for just anybody

• 48:19

Well, hey guys I I have an eight o'clock that's about to start in 20 minutes and I need to prep for it

• 48:24

But I I just wanted to come on and say I like watching you guys chat about things

• 48:28

I think you guys are an eclectic group and you have so much experience in the mmo genre itself

• 48:33

I love the fact that you cover ashes and that you guys give your thoughts because

• 48:36

It's a great touch point when it comes to

• 48:39

understanding the motivation of players who are different than me who are different than you know people at the studio

• 48:43

But are also the same in so many respects

• 48:46

Um, so thanks for having me on I'm glad I was able to chat with you guys a little bit

• 48:50

And I look forward to future shows. Awesome. Hey, see one thing. Thanks so much for coming on

• 48:54

Can you give kori permission to come on our show?

• 48:57

Cory, oh my goodness

• 49:00

Maybe in the future. Let me chat with kori about that

• 49:06

Oh, man, if I can't control myself, how can I control kori's feeling

• 49:11

I'll be gentle. I won't ask any questions

• 49:18

I love it. All right guys. Thanks for having me. Awesome. Thanks for being on

• 49:27

Oh my yeah, I um, that was something different, uh, I

• 49:34

Wow guys

• 49:36

There's 73 of you watching. Thanks you for coming and hanging out while uh, steven hijacked our stream. That was amazing

• 49:41

Um, which was nice because we still get to touch on a lot of things man. I fangirled so hard when he first I I

• 49:49

What i'm glad that's on camera so you can all see how much a fucking fangirl I am. Oh my god

• 49:56

I i probably blushed a bunch of times i'm sitting over here like trying to fucking produce a show and i'm like

• 50:02

I can't think someone else

• 50:04

I need an adult